The Jewish Ethicist: Custodian

My mother is incapacitated. Should I be giving charity from her income?

Q. I am the custodian for my mother, who is no longer in full possession of her faculties. Should I be giving charity from her income?

A. The situation you describe is a sad but increasingly common one. Medical advances are prolonging life more quickly than they are prolonging our faculties, with the result that more and more people need help managing their affairs. It is sad, but fair, that children end up taking care of the people who did so much to take care of them.

The need for custodians for the elderly is more common than previously, but it is by no means new. The Talmud describes clearly the need for such a custodian:

One who has lost his faculties, the court takes control of his assets and provides for support of his wife and sons and daughters, and something else as well. (1)

The Talmud concludes that this "something else" is charity, so this would seem to be the answer to your question.

However, the question needs further study. This passage states only that the court can take charity from the assets – an exaction similar in some ways to a tax. It doesn't refer to the custodian doing so based on his or her own discretion. We have good reason to think that this case might be different. In several places, the Talmud tells us that the custodian for minor orphans should not give charity on their income.

We don't impose on them charity, or redemption of captives, or anything without a defined limit. (2)

A number of reasons are given for this in the commentators. One reason given is that it is inappropriate for the custodian to use his own judgment, given that eventually the children will grow up and be able to exercise their own. (3) This consideration would apply if your mother is expected to have occasional periods of clear judgment. In this case you should wait and see if it is possible to find a moment when she understands her condition and can express her wishes. Otherwise, this consideration would not apply.

But another consideration mentioned is that charity is an obligation with no set boundaries, as implied by the Talmudic passage we just cited. There are always needy people around and a person could liquidate all his wealth and still not satisfy all of them. The problem here is that there are no clear guidelines for the custodian to follow, and so the custodian's judgment is a poor substitute for that of the charge even if the charge will never be able to make his sentiments known.

For this reason, the custom is that if the extent of the charity obligation is well-defined, the custodian can give charity even from assets of orphans. The example given is where they orphans have poor relative who will be reduced to begging if their relatives don't help them, and the father used to give these relatives a fixed stipend each year. In this case there is a strong case to be made that this is the precise charity obligation that applies to the children as well. (4)

First, make sure that the law permits you to give charity from the assets under your control, and that giving charity is consistent with your responsibility as custodian to ensure that your mother is able to obtain her assets if she needs them. If these conditions are met, I think it is appropriate to give charity from your mother's income if there were certain fixed charities and amounts that she was accustomed to give. In this way you can provide her with the merit of giving charity without substituting your judgment for hers.

Many people are careful to write a "living will" clearly expressing their desires should they require other people to make decisions for them. It is a good idea to include charity donations in such a document, so that custodians have clear guidelines to fulfill your wishes.

About the Author

Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir is Research Director at the Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem (www.besr.org). He studied at Harvard, received a PhD in Economics from MIT, and rabbinic ordination from the Israeli Chief Rabbinate. Prior to moving to Israel, he worked at the Council of Economic Advisers in the Reagan administration. Rabbi Dr. Meir is also a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Jerusalem College of Technology and has published several articles on business, economics and Jewish law. He is the author of the two-volume, "Meaning in Mitzvot (Feldheim), and his Aish.com columns form the basis of the "Jewish Ethicist" book (ktav.com).

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 4

(4)
Rivka D,
February 25, 2009 12:55 PM

giving charity depends on the circumstances

I do not agree that you should wait and give tzedaka only from any inheritance. I think the answer depends a lot on the financial circumstances. First, make sure the final expenses are pre-paid, or there are enough funds put away to cover them. If there is still more than enough money to cover monthly expenses, why not give her the pleasure of knowing she can still help others? In my mom's last few years, it gave her great pleasure when I asked her if she wanted to give to XX charity. I only asked about charities I knew she would have given to before, and in amounts she would have given before.

(3)
victor,
February 25, 2009 6:18 AM

i liked Wayne's suggession

but could she be right?
It would be interesting to know what does the Almighty say in this situation?
If it is for charity when close relatives would also be in need in these difficult times.
The egyptians gave everything the people of G-d asked for when they were leaving Egypt.
Can some analogy be found?

(2)
Peggy J. Knox,
February 24, 2009 5:23 PM

Never too Poor to Give Something

Although I am a convert, religious values and lessons were not left at the church door when the last "amen" was said. We were poor. However, my mother and father told us there was always someone poorer than we were, and told and showed us if we didn't have money, then we needed to find other ways to give, which is a lesson my sisters and I continue to follow. When we were planning our parents' funerals, we tried to come up with one name poorer than we were--we couldn't.

(1)
Wayne,
February 24, 2009 11:06 AM

Absolutely Not

As custodian of your mother you should be saving any unused monthly money to a fund to be used for her needs, should she need the money before she passes away. (for medical expenses or other) Once she has passed and I presume since she is your mother those assets will be bequeathed to you, you can then donate any or all of those assets to any charity you wish. You need to ensure that your mother is taken care of first. If she does not need the money, give it all to charity if you wish.

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I always loved the story of Jonah and the whale. Why do we read it during the afternoon service of Yom Kippur?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Let's recap the story: God tells Jonah to go to Ninveh and to prophesy that in 40 days, God will destroy the city. Instead, Jonah goes to Jaffa, boards a ship, and sails for Tarshish. A great storm arises. Frightened, Jonah goes to sleep in the ship's hold. The sailors somehow recognize that Jonah is responsible for the storm. They throw him overboard, and the sea becomes calm.

A great fish swallows Jonah. Then three days later, God commands the fish to spit Jonah back out upon dry land. God tells Jonah, "Let's try it again. Go to Ninveh and tell them in 40 days I will destroy the city."

The story is a metaphor for our struggle for clarity. Jonah is the soul. The soul is assigned to sanctify the world, and draw it close to God. But we are seduced by the world's beauty. (Jaffa in Hebrew means "beauty.") The ship is the body, the sea is the world, and the storm is life's pains and troubles. God hopes confrontation with mortality will inspire us to examine our lives. But Jonah's is the more common response - we go to sleep (have a beer, turn on the television). The sailors throw Jonah overboard - this is death. The fish that swallows Jonah is the grave. Jonah is spat back upon the land - reincarnation. And the Almighty tells us to try again. "Go sanctify the world and bring it close to God."

Each of us is born with an opportunity and a challenge. We each have unique gifts to offer the world and unique challenges to perfect ourselves. If we leave the task unfinished the first time, we get a second chance. Jonah teaches us that repentance can reverse a harsh decree. If the residents of Ninveh had the ability to correct their mistakes and do teshuva, how much more so do we have the ability to correct our former mistakes and do teshuva.

(source: "The Bible for the Clueless But Curious," by Rabbi Nachum Braverman)

In 1948, Egypt launched a large-scale offensive against the Negev region of Israel. This was part of the War of Independence, an attack by five Arab armies designed to "drive the Jews into the sea." Though the Jews were under-armed, untrained, and few in number, through ingenuity and perseverance they staved off the attacks and secured the borders. Yet the price was high -- Israel lost 6,373 of its people, a full one percent of the Jewish population of Israel at the time.

And what does teshuvah consist of? [Repentance to the degree] that the One Who knows all that is hidden will testify that he will never again repeat this sin(Maimonides, Laws of Teshuvah 2:2).

"How can this be?" ask the commentaries. "Inasmuch as man always has free choice to do good or evil, to sin or not to sin, how can God testify that a person will never repeat a particular sin? Is this not a repudiation of one's free will?"

The answer to this came to me at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, at which the speaker, a man who had been sober for twenty-one years, said, "The man I was drank. The man I was will drink again. But now I am a different man."

A sin does not occur in a vacuum. A person who is devout does not abruptly decide to eat treifah. A sin occurs when a person is in such a state that a particular act is not anathema to him.

Consequently, repentance is not complete if one merely regrets having done wrong. One must ask, "How did this sin ever come about? In what kind of a state was I that permitted me to commit this sin?"

True repentance thus consists of changing one's character to the point where, as the person is now, one can no longer even consider doing the forbidden act. Of course, the person's character may deteriorate - and if it does, he may sin again.

God does not testify that the person will never repeat the sin, but rather that his degree of repentance and correction of his character defects are such that, as long as he maintains his new status, he will not commit that sin.

Today I shall...

try to understand how I came to do those things that I regret having done, and bring myself to a state where such acts will be alien to me.

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